The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  “Why not?”

  “There was no point in getting him involved. It was just an accident.”

  “He couldn’t have killed Maurice after he left here?”

  “No. They said he’s been dead over an hour. What did Desmond tell you?”

  “Desmond?”

  “Across the hall. The one who looks like he smells something bad.”

  “How did you know I talked to him and not the side of beef?”

  He laughed and almost dropped his coffee cup. “I don’t think Roy can talk.”

  “He didn’t know nothin’ about nothin’.” I found myself laughing also. I got up and walked to the glass doors. I slid them open and then shut again. “Did you ever think one of these was open when it was really shut?”

  “No. But I’ve heard of it happening.”

  I sighed. “So have I.” I turned and looked at what he was working on at the drafting table. It was a small painting of a boy and girl, she in a soft white dress, and he in jeans and T-shirt. They looked about fifteen. They were embracing, about to kiss. It was quite obviously the first time for both of them. It was good. I told him so.

  He grinned with pleasure. “Thanks. It’s for a paperback cover.”

  “Whose idea was it that Detweiler have dinner and spend the evening with you?”

  He thought for a moment. “Maurice.” He looked up at me and grinned. “Do you know stamps?”

  It took me a second to realize what he meant. “You mean stamp collecting? Not much.”

  “Maurice was a philatelist. He specialized in postwar Germany – locals and zones, things like that. He’d gotten a kilo of buildings and wanted to sort them undisturbed.”

  I shook my head. “You’ve lost me. A kilo of buildings.”

  He laughed. “It’s a set of twenty-eight stamps issued in the American Zone in 1948 showing famous German buildings. Conditions in Germany were still pretty chaotic at the time, and the stamps were printed under fairly makeshift circumstances. Consequently, there’s an enormous variety of different perforations, watermarks, and engravings. Hundreds as a matter of fact. Maurice could spend hours and hours poring over them.”

  “Are they valuable?”

  “No. Very common. Some of the varieties are hard to find, but they’re not valuable.” He gave me a knowing look. “Nothing was missing from Maurice’s apartment.”

  I shrugged. “It had occurred to me to wonder where Detweiler got his money.”

  “I don’t know. The subject never came up.” He wasn’t being defensive.

  “You liked him, didn’t you?”

  There was a weary sadness in his eyes. “Yes,” he said.

  That afternoon I picked up Birdie Pawlowicz at the Brewster Hotel and took her to Harry Spinner’s funeral. I told her about Maurice Milian and Andrew Detweiler. We talked it around and around. The Detweiler boy obviously couldn’t have killed Harry or Milian, but it was stretching coincidence a little bit far.

  After the funeral I went to the Los Angeles Public Library and started checking back issues of the Times. I’d only made it back three weeks when the library closed. The LA Times is thick, and unless the death is sensational or the dead prominent, the story might be tucked in anywhere except the classifieds.

  Last Tuesday, the 26th, a girl had cut her wrists with a razor blade in North Hollywood.

  The day before, Monday, the 25th, a girl had miscarried and hemorrhaged. She had bled to death because she and her boyfriend were stoned out of their heads. They lived a block off Western – very near the Brewster – and Detweiler was at the Brewster Monday.

  Sunday, the 24th, a wino had been knifed in MacArthur Park.

  Saturday, the 23rd, I had three. A knifing in a bar on Pico, a shooting in a rooming house on Irolo, and a rape and knifing in an alley off LaBrea. Only the gunshot victim had bled to death, but there had been a lot of blood in all three.

  Friday, the 22nd, the same day Detweiler checked into the Brewster, a two-year-old boy had fallen on an upturned rake in his backyard on Larchemont – only eight or ten blocks from where I lived on Beachwood. And a couple of Chicano kids had had a knife fight behind Hollywood High. One was dead and the other was in jail. Ah, machismo!

  The list went on and on, all the way back to Thursday, the 7th. On that day was another slashed-wrist suicide near Western and Wilshire.

  The next morning, Tuesday, the 3rd, I called Miss Tremaine and told her I’d be late getting in but would check in every couple of hours to find out if the slinky blonde looking for her kid sister had shown up. She humphed.

  Larchemont is a middle-class neighbourhood huddled in between the old wealth around the country club and the blight spreading down Melrose from Western Avenue. It tries to give the impression of suburbia – and does a pretty good job of it – rather than just another nearly downtown shopping center. The area isn’t big on apartments or rooming houses, but there are a few. I found the Detweiler boy at the third one I checked. It was a block and a half from where the little kid fell on the rake.

  According to the landlord, at the time of the kid’s death Detweiler was playing bridge with him and a couple of elderly old-maid sisters in number twelve. He hadn’t been feeling well and had moved out later that evening – to catch a bus to San Diego, to visit his ailing mother. The landlord had felt sorry for him, so sorry he’d broken a steadfast rule and refunded most of the month’s rent Detweiler had paid in advance. After all, he’d only been there three days. So sad about his back. Such a nice gentle boy – a writer, you know.

  No, I didn’t know, but it explained how he could move around so much without seeming to work.

  I called David Fowler: “Yes, Andy had a portable typewriter, but he hadn’t mentioned being a writer.”

  And Birdie Pawlowicz: “Yeah, he typed a lot in his room.”

  I found the Detweiler boy again on the 16th and the 19th. He’d moved into a rooming house near Silver Lake Park on the night of the 13th and moved out again on the 19th. The landlady hadn’t refunded his money, but she gave him an alibi for the knifing of an old man in the park on the 16th and the suicide of a girl in the same rooming house on the 19th. He’d been in the pink of health when he moved in, sick on the 16th, healthy the 17th, and sick again on the 19th.

  It was like a rerun. He lived a block away from where a man was mugged, killed, and robbed in an alley on the 13th – though the details of the murder didn’t seem to fit the pattern. But he was sick, had an alibi, and moved to Silver Lake.

  Rerun it on the 10th: a woman slipped in the bathtub and fell through the glass shower doors, cutting herself to ribbons. Sick, alibi, moved.

  It may be because I was always rotten in math, but it wasn’t until right then that I figured out Detweiler’s timetable. Milian died the 1st, Harry Spinner the 28th, the miscarriage the 25th, the little kid on the 22nd, Silver Lake on the 16th and 19th, etc, etc, etc.

  A bloody death occurred in Detweiler’s general vicinity every third day.

  But I couldn’t figure out a pattern for the victims: male, female, little kids, old aunties, married, unmarried, rich, poor, young, old. No pattern of any kind, and there’s always a pattern. I even checked to see if the names were in alphabetical order.

  I got back to my office at six. Miss Tremaine sat primly at her desk, cleared of everything but her purse and a notepad. She reminded me quite a lot of Desmond. “What are you still doing here, Miss Tremaine? You should’ve left an hour ago.” I sat at my desk, leaned back until the swivel chair groaned twice, and propped my feet up.

  She picked up the pad. “I wanted to give you your calls.”

  “Can’t they wait? I’ve been sleuthing all day and I’m bushed.”

  “No one is paying you to find this Detweiler person, are they?”

  “No.”

  “Your bank statement came today.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. A good secretary keeps her employer informed. I was informing you.”
>
  “Okay. Who called?”

  She consulted the pad, but I’d bet my last gumshoe she knew every word on it by heart. “A Mrs Carmichael called. Her French poodle has been kidnapped. She wants you to find her.”

  “Ye Gods! Why doesn’t she go to the police?”

  “Because she’s positive her ex-husband is the kidnapper. She doesn’t want to get him in any trouble; she just wants Gwendolyn back.”

  “Gwendolyn?”

  “Gwendolyn. A Mrs Bushyager came by. She wants you to find her little sister.”

  I sat up so fast I almost fell out of the chair. I gave her a long, hard stare, but her neutral expression didn’t flicker. “You’re kidding.” Her eyebrows rose a millimetre. “Was she a slinky blonde?”

  “No. She was a dumpy brunette.”

  I settled back in the chair, trying not to laugh. “Why does Mrs Bushyager want me to find her little sister?” I sputtered.

  “Because Mrs Bushyager thinks she’s shacked up somewhere with Mr Bushyager. She’d like you to call her tonight.”

  “Tomorrow. I’ve got a date with Janice tonight.” She reached in her desk drawer and pulled out my bank statement. She dropped it on the desk with a papery plop. “Don’t worry,” I assured her, “I won’t spend much money. Just a little spaghetti and wine tonight and ham and eggs in the morning.” She humphed. My point. “Anything else?”

  “A Mr Bloomfeld called. He wants you to get the goods on Mrs Bloomfeld so he can sue for divorce.”

  I sighed. Miss Tremaine closed the pad. “Okay. No to Mrs Carmichael and make appointments for Bushyager and Bloomfeld.” She lowered her eyelids at me. I spread my hands. “Would Sam Spade go looking for a French poodle named Gwendolyn?”

  “He might if he had your bank statement. Mr Bloomfeld will be in at two, Mrs Bushyager at three.”

  “Miss Tremaine, you’d make somebody a wonderful mother.” She didn’t even humph; she just picked up her purse and stalked out. I swiveled the chair around and looked at the calendar. Tomorrow was the 4th.

  Somebody would die tomorrow and Andrew Detweiler would be close by.

  I scooted up in bed and leaned against the headboard. Janice snorted into the pillow and opened one eye, pinning me with it. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” I said.

  “What’s the matter,” she muttered, “too much spaghetti?”

  “No. Too much Andrew Detweiler.”

  She scooted up beside me, keeping the sheet over her breasts, and turned on the light. She rummaged around on the nightstand for a cigarette. “Who wants to divorce him?”

  “That’s mean, Janice,” I groaned.

  “You want a cigarette?”

  “Yeah.”

  She put two cigarettes in her mouth and lit them both. She handed me one. “You don’t look a bit like Paul Henreid,” I said.

  She grinned. “That’s funny. You look like Bette Davis. Who’s Andrew Detweiler?”

  So I told her.

  “It’s elementary, my dear Sherlock,” she said. “Andrew Detweiler is a vampire.” I frowned at her. “Of course, he’s a clever vampire. Vampires are usually stupid. They always give themselves away by leaving those two little teeth marks on people’s jugulars.”

  “Darling, even vampires have to be at the scene of the crime.”

  “He always has an alibi, huh?”

  I got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. “That’s suspicious in itself.”

  When I came out she said, “Why?”

  “Innocent people usually don’t have alibis, especially not one every three days.”

  “Which is probably why innocent people get put in jail so often.”

  I chuckled and sat on the edge of the bed. “You may be right.”

  “Bert, do that again.”

  I looked at her over my shoulder. “Do what?”

  “Go to the bathroom.”

  “I don’t think I can. My bladder holds only so much.”

  “I don’t mean that. Walk over to the bathroom door.”

  I gave her a suspicious frown, got up, and walked over to the bathroom door. I turned around, crossed my arms, and leaned against the door frame. “Well?”

  She grinned. “You’ve got a cute rear end. Almost as cute as Burt Reynolds’. Maybe he’s twins.”

  “What?” I practically screamed.

  “Maybe Andrew Detweiler is twins. One of them commits the murders and the other establishes the alibis.”

  “Twin vampires?”

  She frowned. “That’s a bit much, isn’t it? Had they discovered blood groups in Bram Stoker’s day?”

  I got back in bed and pulled the sheet up to my waist, leaning beside her against the headboard. “I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

  “That’s another way vampires are stupid. They never check the victim’s blood group. The wrong blood group can kill you.”

  “Vampires don’t exactly get transfusions.”

  “It all amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?” I shrugged. “Oh, well,” she sighed, “vampires are stupid.” She reached over and plucked at the hair on my chest. “I haven’t had an indecent proposition in hours,” she said, grinning.

  So I made one.

  Wednesday morning I made a dozen phone calls. Of the nine victims I knew about, I was able to find the information on six.

  All six had the same blood group.

  I lit a cigarette and leaned back in the swivel chair. The whole thing was spinning around in my head. I’d found a pattern for the victims, but I didn’t know if it was the pattern. It just didn’t make sense. Maybe Detweiler was a vampire.

  “Mallory,” I said out loud, “you’re cracking up.”

  Miss Tremaine glanced up. “If I were you, I’d listen to you,” she said poker-faced.

  The next morning I staggered out of bed at 6.00 am. I took a cold shower, shaved, dressed, and put Murine in my eyes. They still felt like I’d washed them in rubber cement. Mrs Bloomfeld had kept me up until two the night before, doing all the night spots in Santa Monica with some dude I hadn’t identified yet. When they checked into a motel, I went home and went to bed.

  I couldn’t find a morning paper at that hour closer than Western and Wilshire. The story was on page seven. Fortunately they found the body in time for the early edition. A woman named Sybil Herndon, age 38, had committed suicide in an apartment on Las Palmas. (Detweiler hadn’t gone very far. The address was just around the corner from the Almsbury.) She had cut her wrists on a piece of broken mirror. She had been discovered about eleven-thirty when the manager went over to ask her to turn down the volume on her television set.

  It was too early to drop around, and so I ate breakfast, hoping this was one of the times Detweiler stuck around for more than three days. Not for a minute did I doubt he would be living at the apartment court on Las Palmas, or not far away.

  The owner-manager of the court was one of those creatures peculiar to Hollywood. She must have been a starlet in the twenties or thirties, but success had eluded her. So she had tried to freeze herself in time. She still expected, at any moment, a call from The Studio. But her flesh hadn’t cooperated. Her hair was the colour of tarnished copper, and the fire-engine-red lipstick was painted far past her thin lips. Her watery eyes peered at me through a Lone Ranger mask of Maybelline on a plaster-white face. Her dress had obviously been copied from the wardrobe of Norma Shearer.

  “Yes?” She had a breathy voice. Her eyes quickly traveled the length of my body. That happens often enough to keep me feeling good, but this time it gave me a queasy sensation, like I was being measured for a mummy case. I showed her my ID, and asked if I could speak to her about one of the tenants.

  “Of course. Come on in. I’m Lorraine Nesbitt.” Was there a flicker of disappointment that I hadn’t recognized the name? She stepped back holding the door for me. I could tell that detectives, private or otherwise, asking about her tenants wasn’t a new thing. I walked into the doilied room, and she looked at me from a hundred directio
ns. The faded photographs covered every level surface and clung to the walls like leeches. She had been quite a dish – forty years ago. She saw me looking at the photos and smiled. The makeup around her mouth cracked.

  “Which one do you want to ask about?” The smile vanished and the cracks closed.

  “Andrew Detweiler.” She looked blank. “Young, good-looking, with a hunchback.”

  The cracks opened. “Oh, yes. He’s only been here a few days. The name had slipped my mind.”

  “He’s still here?”

  “Oh, yes.” She sighed. “It’s so unfair for such a beautiful young man to have a physical impairment.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “Not much. He’s only been here since Sunday night. He’s very handsome, like an angel, a dark angel. But it wasn’t his handsomeness that attracted me.” She smiled. “I’ve seen many handsome men in my day, you know. It’s difficult to verbalize. He has such an incredible innocence. A lost, doomed look that Byron must have had. A vulnerability that makes you want to shield him and protect him. I don’t know for sure what it is, but it struck a chord in my soul. Soul,” she mused. “Maybe that’s it. He wears his soul on his face.” She nodded, as if to herself. “A dangerous thing to do.” She looked back up at me. “If that quality, whatever it is, would photograph, he would become a star overnight, whether he could act or not. Except – of course – for his infirmity.”

  Lorraine Nesbitt, I decided, was as nutty as a fruitcake.

  Someone entered the room. He stood leaning against the door frame, looking at me with sleepy eyes. He was about twenty-five, wearing tight chinos without underwear and a T-shirt. His hair was tousled and cut unfashionably short. He had a good-looking Kansas face. The haircut made me think he was new in town, but the eyes said he wasn’t. I guess the old broad liked his hair that way.

  She simpered. “Oh, Johnny! Come on in. This detective was asking about Andrew Detweiler in number seven.” She turned back to me. “This is my protégé, Johnny Peacock – a very talented young man. I’m arranging for a screen test as soon as Mr Goldwyn returns my calls.” She lowered her eyelids demurely. “I was a Goldwyn girl, you know.”